ELYSIAN ISLE - Thunderous applause from eager fans greeted Terry Pratchett when he arrived in Second Life on Thursday for his first visit. Those present had waited several hours to hear the award-winning author of the Discworld series speak at the Q&A session, knowing that if they did not arrive early, they may not get on to the sim.

Technical problems prevented Pratchett from using “voice” as planned.

“Who do we kick out so Terry can get in?” asked one of the crowd as the area began to fill up. “Don't worry, we've got that sorted,” Nick Gloucester, Terry's assistant for the evening, told us.

Terry walked on stage to a round of applause, cheers and shouts; pulled off a series of gestures that would have looked more at home on a bodybuilder than an author; and took hold of the microphone to greet the crowd. “Hello everybody! Sorry, I'm new at all of this kind of stuff and so can anyone tell me how to get the rocket launcher?” he asked. “Okay, I know that you have to get the shotgun first, but sometimes you get lucky.”

Questions came slowly at first and with a lot of confusion over whether they were to be put to Terry directly or to Nick for moderation. After a slew of comments about whether anyone had a rocket launcher they could give Terry, and comments that “SL tends toward Make Clothes, Not War”, ImmortalitySou Ballinger was the quickly chosen victim for the inevitable Instant Message spam and the event got down to business.

“Will Second Life appear in one of your books?” asked Michaelx Beerbaum.

“As far as I'm concerned, my books are Second Life,” Prtatchett replied.

On the subject of why Nation, his latest novel, was the first in 25 years to not be set on Discworld, Terry remarked: “[It] being on Discworld would change all kinds of things that I could do. After all, Nation is hardly full of laughs. Setting Nation on a thinly disguised "alternate" world does, I think, give it more power and urgency. ... I wanted this world (RL), but with a few interesting alterations.

“I came up with the idea in 2003 ... I was so excited that I told Sarah Lefanu and I'm glad that I did because she is one person who can vouch that I came up with the idea before the big Asian Tsunami.”

This is not the first time one of Pratchett’s books has skimmed close to real world events, however. Making Money, the thirty-sixth Discworld novel, saw notorious con artist Moist von Lupwig given the task of rebuilding the failing Bank of Ankh-Morpork.